Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Museums
Wrocław
The National Museum in Wrocław is one of Poland's major art museums and the best place to explore the art of Silesia, from medieval stone carving to 19th-century painting. It occupies a grand, vine-covered building on the Oder River, a 15-…
Museums
Wałbrzych
The Porcelain Museum in Wałbrzych (roughly "VAH-wb-zhikh") is a small but rewarding museum in Lower Silesia, southwest Poland. Set in the neoclassical Alberti Palace in the city center, it displays more than 10,000 pieces of Silesian and E…
Museums
Jawor
The Regional Museum in Jawor occupies the former Bernardine monastery at ul. Klasztorna 6, close to the Church of Peace. The Gothic hall church with its cloisters and garth is itself the main exhibit: it preserves a late Gothic cycle of Pa…
Museums
Sobótka
The Stanisław Dunajewski Ślęża Museum in Sobótka tells the story of a mountain that has drawn people for thousands of years – its ancient beliefs, the nature of the massif and the history of the town at its foot. It occupies the Abbot's Ho…
Museums
Karpacz
The Museum of Sport and Tourism in Karpacz tells how the Karkonosze (Giant Mountains) became the mountains of hikers, lugers and skiers. Its collection holds something you will not see anywhere else in Poland: a full set of participation m…
Museums
Wrocław
The Old Jewish Cemetery in Wrocław (say "VROTS-wahf"), on Ślężna Street, is one of the most remarkable Jewish burial grounds in Central Europe and today operates as the Museum of Cemetery Art, a branch of the Wrocław City Museum. Around 12…
Museums
Kudowa-Zdrój
Behind the fence at 46b Zdrojowa Street, in a small house with a mansard roof, live more than 5,500 toys – from figurines two thousand years old to video game consoles. The Toy Museum in Kudowa-Zdrój opened in December 2002 as the first pr…
Museums
Kletno
More than 40 fossilised dinosaur eggs in four nests, some 70 million years old – according to the museum, this is the only place in Poland where you can see such a collection. The Museum of the Earth in Kletno is a private geological museu…
Other
Wrocław
Nadodrze is a district of tenement houses, workshops and painted courtyards just across the Oder, about 10 minutes' walk from the Market Square. In 1945 it suffered far less damage than the centre, so today it shows pre-war Wrocław in its…
Mountains & peaks
Karłów
On its western and southern sides Narożnik drops away in sheer sandstone walls, and from the rock slabs on top you can see Szczeliniec Wielki, the Duszniki basin and the Bystrzyckie and Orlickie Mountains all at once. It is one of the quic…
Gardens
Międzygórze
On the slope above Międzygórze, at about 700 metres, wooden figures from fairy tales stand among junipers and yews: Hansel and Gretel, Puss in Boots, Polish cartoon goat Koziołek Matołek, the Moomins and the Little Mole. Pride of place goe…
Gardens
Wrocław
The University of Wrocław Botanical Garden is one of the most peaceful things to do in Wrocław (say "VROTS-wahf"), Poland's third-largest city and the capital of Lower Silesia. Tucked behind the cathedral on Ostrów Tumski (Cathedral Island…
Churches & monasteries
Lubiąż
Lubiąż Abbey (roughly "LOO-byonzh") is one of the largest monastic complexes in Europe and a masterpiece of Silesian Baroque: its facade stretches about 223 m (730 ft) and the buildings hold more than 300 rooms. Set above the Oder River ab…
Nature
Świerzawa
On the slope of Wielisławka hill, dozens of vertical stone columns stand side by side like the pipes of a giant organ. Organy Wielisławskie, the "Wielisław Organ Pipes" in Sędziszowa near Świerzawa, are the remains of a volcano more than 2…
Old towns & squares
Wrocław
Ostrów Tumski in Wrocław (Cathedral Island, pronounced roughly OS-troof TOOM-skee, VROTS-wahv) is the oldest part of the city: a former island in the Oder River where the Piast dynasty built a stronghold in the 10th century and where a bis…
Palaces
Kłodzko
More than a hundred rooms, some 6,000 m² of floor space and sgraffito from 1560 scratched into wet plaster: Gorzanów near Bystrzyca Kłodzka is one of the largest and oldest residences in the Kłodzko Land. It has never burned down or been d…
Palaces
Jedlina-Zdrój
In 1944 the construction of the Riese complex in the Owl Mountains was run from this white palace in Jedlina-Zdrój: it housed the Organisation Todt's construction headquarters, and the building itself bore the code name "Villa Erika". Toda…
Palaces
Kłodzko
When the last tenants moved out of Kamieniec Palace in 2004, the building was being vandalised and stripped. Today this 18th-century Baroque residence in the Kłodzko Valley, near the spa town of Polanica-Zdrój, is a hotel with a restaurant…
Palaces
Kłodzko
Ławica is the lowest-lying village in the Kłodzko Valley, strung along a steep bank above the Nysa Kłodzka river right where it enters the Bardo Gorge. Above the former farmyard rises an eclectic palace with a five-sided tower, remodelled…
Palaces
Piechowice
This Baroque palace on the Kamienna river was both a residence and a linen bleachery: on the ground floor, cloth belonging to Jelenia Góra merchants was soaked in vats, then spread on the meadows to dry. According to the owners, King Frede…
Palaces
Jelenia Góra
The Schaffgotsch family moved to Cieplice in 1675, after their former seat, Chojnik Castle, burned down following a lightning strike. A century later fire also destroyed the Cieplice manor — and so the palace with an 81-metre façade came i…
Palaces
Jelenia Góra
When fire destroyed Chojnik Castle in 1675, the Schaffgotsch family needed a new seat – and found it at the foot of the same hill. Work on the palace in Sobieszów began in 1705; according to the European Route of Castles and Palaces, it wa…
Palaces
Kobierzyce
In Biskupice Podgórne, just outside Wrocław in the Kobierzyce municipality, you can trace two country houses. The white palace with an onion-domed tower, visible from afar, dates from the late 19th century – the national heritage register…
Palaces
Bobrów
From a distance it looks like a château on the Loire: a brick mass with one of the tallest towers in the Jelenia Góra Valley rises above a bend of the Bóbr. Up close you see walls that decayed for decades without a roof — its tiles were st…